Belarusian author and investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich has expressed "personal joy" at receiving the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature and said the award means recognition for her entire nation.

"It's not an award for me but for our culture, for our small country, which has been caught in a grinder throughout history," she told a press conference in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, after the announcement of the prestigious prize.

Alexievich, 67, was born in Soviet Ukraine to a Belarusian father and Ukrainian mother and writes in Russian.

She has used her journalistic skills to chronicle major tragedies that have affected Belarus throughout the 20th century, including Nazi occupation, the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, and the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

The Swedish Academy commended her "polyphonic writings" and described her work as "a monument to suffering and courage in our time."